Also while on holiday i had the pleasure of browsing the state libraries of New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria. i found them all to be fantastic!posted by Harpocrates at 2:18 PM on February 25, 2012

Nice, I love me some vintage bicycles!posted by carter at 2:25 PM on February 25, 2012

A couple of years ago I was involved in a project with the State Library of South Australia. I forget the details now, so I might be making some of this up, but I think they'd inherited a bunch of old 16mm film from some old collection, and they wanted to show some of it off as part of the Adelaide Film Festival.

Some of it was "noteworthy", like a couple of visits by the Queen. There were some promotional films for local developments. One film about the old John Martins Chistmas Pageant. Even a making-of for an old SAFC-funded film. There was also some hilariously banal stuff like a 15-minute long film about a couple of kids having an awesome fun day skipping school. Of course they were later buried in sand never to be heard from again at the end. (in other words, a real DON'T DATE ROBOTS film)

It was around about this time that I started developing my paranoia about maintaining data. I work on a lot of stuff which never again need see the light of day, but that's a pretty myopic point of view if I really think about it. Even the most throwaway little student production says something about the time, and about the people making it. Compare a home movie to a government funded film of a royal visit. Which is going to say more about the reality of everyday life at the time of production?

I envy archivists for the importance of their work.

Also, these are some cool bikes. Do we even have skipping champions anymore? Perhaps we should.posted by dumbland at 4:28 PM on February 25, 2012

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